Five high-calibre legal dramas

Ally McBeal. An offbeat drama which contrasted the rigours of the legal world with a flaky female protagonist, to great effect. The eponymous heroine, played by Calista Flockhart, may have had a fine legal mind, but she was also dazzled by hallucinations of dancing babies. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the character prompted Time magazine to ask, in 1998, Is Feminism Dead? - but the show was popular with those who didn't take it too seriously, running on the Fox network from 1997 to 2002